<div>Friends and family– hi! It’s Alex and Shane! The best libra couple in the known omniverse! We love ya’ll and have been very grateful for your friendship, your art and activism in these strange times, and the love you’ve spread across the world. We’ve tried to return that kindness, despite our often limited means. We’ve created a gofundme! 

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<div>Recently we’ve both had birthdays and folks have asked us “what do you need?” and it’s always a difficult question. We’ve tried for grants and assistance, but those don’t always pan out. Shane specifically being unable to do traditional work/labor and having to use social security disability, our funds are extremely tight, we live with scarcity sometimes and that affects our quality of life!

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<div>But we are also artists! We still want to make art too! That means having the time, space, and financial ability to do so. To buy supplies, go on retreats, take classes– to record music, rent studio space, upgrade our equipment! Each poster, story, song, film, pamphlet, comic, zine you see from us cost money to create. Grants have been tough lately, and even when we do receive them, they rarely cover the space or stability we need to keep our creative projects going. So we are asking our community of friends for what institutions won’t provide: help to make our queer, body-positive, Afrofuturist, speculative art!

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<div>For this community fund we’d use it for:

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<div>Bill payments, particularly our gas bill and phone bills.

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<div>Shane’s wheelchair repair and maintenance (a constant)

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<div>General expenses including clothing and house maintenance and food

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<div>Rent

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<div>Art needs: 

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<div>Recording expenses (studio time, new equipment, recording app updates, travel)

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<div>Art supplies (Alex’s  copier needs its scanner fixed– it’s a major part of his practice!)

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<div>Editors (Shane’s novel, now complete through the first draft, will need a pro editor!)

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<div>Major Projects:

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<div>Shane’s novel “151” is complete! It’s a gorgeously written work of surrealist fiction, illuminating childhood trauma through the eyes of a queer child star/prodigy enthralled by a cult. Shane skewers and pays hommage to nostalgia– it’s a very Gen X novel– in entrancing ways, while looking at patterns of authority and control in a stylized world not unlike our own! Ya’ll, this book– it’s gorgeous. It’s been his main project for more than a year and he’s **this** close to completing it! He’s at 105K words (!!!) but needs help shaping, paring and editing. We need editors and the space to focus!

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<div>Alex’s works including: finishing  queer cyberpunk superhero plussize-positive comic BLACK VANS, at least three novels (a gay bear sci-fi romance romp; a post-fantasy epic series about queer anarchists fighting the “returned king”; and a very personal, semi-autobiographical sci-fi/weird fiction novel about aliens, superheroes and cyborgs told through a queer lens: think The Matrix meets Baraka), new recordings for my bands and my solo music project.

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<div>If you’ve ever connected with our work or the community we help nurture, this is a way to give back and keep it going. This is a way to help celebrate our birthdays as we enter a new phase in life. Every bit helps, and we’re endlessly grateful for anything you can contribute or share.

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<div>Thank you for helping us keep the fire alive 

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<div> With love,

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<div> Shane &amp; Alex

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Valarie Smith

Anonymous

Lorelei Miller

Bruce Jr

Jeffery Wilbourne

Tim Belknap

Maureen Walsh

Lauryn Biedlingmaier

Nasrene May kordani

Jake Lucas

abigail logsdon

grant johnson

Ellen Reynolds

Nicole Mercurio

Jeffrey L. Guarnieri

Support Shane & Alex's Artistic Journey

Support Shane & Alex's Artistic Journey

Still $1,126 to go. Help us build momentum.